Because She Sold Them Out

California’s New Senator Was a Labor Leader. Why Are Unions Upset With Her?

—The New York Times

After being president of an SEIU local, and president of the California SEIU State Council, Laphonza Butler lobbied for Uber and Lyft, and against their drivers.

Then she went on to lobby for AirBnb.

She sold out, just like Linda Chavez did when she joined the Reagan administration after leaving the American Federation of Teachers, and then cashed in on right wing welfare.

It does not matter what you did before you sell out your people, it only matters that you sold out your people.

I don't expect labor leaders to live like monks, but I also don't expect them to treat they time in organized labor as a cash register:

In the summer of 2019, Uber, Lyft and other companies that use contract drivers faced a crisis in California. The State Legislature was poised to pass a law that would effectively require them to treat their drivers as employees, meaning the gig companies would have to pay drivers a minimum wage, cover their expenses and contribute to state unemployment — all significant new costs.

………

So Uber brought in a team of high-powered consultants, including one whose connections with organized labor were unimpeachable: Laphonza Butler, the former president of California’s largest union, a branch of the Service Employees International Union.

Ms. Butler, working through a prominent California consulting firm, advised Uber on how to deal with unions like the Teamsters and S.E.I.U., and sat in on several face-to-face meetings between the gig companies and union representatives, according to those familiar with the negotiations.

The overture to labor divided union activists, some of whom bristled at negotiating with the companies, and ultimately, it failed. But Ms. Butler’s chapter with Uber proved to be a pivotal moment in her career, moving from labor activism to the world of high-powered political consulting, which also involved a role in advising Vice President Kamala Harris in her 2020 presidential campaign.

………

But the appointment has also drawn ire from labor advocates, who have not forgotten Ms. Butler’s work consulting with Uber, which some saw as an uncomfortable reversal from her history in the labor movement and the values she promoted there.

“The sense was she was betraying her commitment to working people,” said Veena Dubal, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law, who has argued that Uber’s drivers should be classified as employees. “She sold out in a really big way.”

………

Ms. Butler was not involved in the Prop. 22 campaign and left the consulting firm in 2020 to become a director of public policy at Airbnb, the short-term home rental company launched in San Francisco.

Like Uber, Airbnb has faced regulatory heat in Democratic, union-friendly strongholds like New York, where the company was being blamed for pushing up rents for working class residents and hurting hotel jobs. (Airbnb has said many other factors have caused rents to rise in New York and that its business model has helped drive down lodging costs for consumers.) One of the company’s chief adversaries in New York had been the Hotel Trades Council, a powerful union.

I am not surprised that New York Times reporters are surprised about people being angry about someone selling out.

Where ordinary people see hypocrites, these journalists see valued sources.

That's a problem.